Problematic situations should be rare. Waitstaff commonly take drink orders at
the time patrons are seated, usually simultaneously with the appetizer order.
If an appetizer is ordered, that's food, and the law has been satisfied.
There is no need to grill the customer as to intent. If the customers
don't order food with the drinks, but are seriously perusing the menu, the
waitstaff can make a reasoned judgment of intent to eat. The problems arise
from uncommon situations, such as patrons being seated temporarily while waiting
for a table to become available who want a drink while they wait. It's no
big deal for waitstaff to explain the law and ask if the diners intend to eat.
It happens all the time. Sure, someone can game the system and say they changed
their mind about eating after being served a drink, but that has to be the
exception. There is no point in excessively burdening the normal patron to
catch the outlier.

The DABC commissioners might have a better shot at
crafting the regulations if some of them had ever actually been in the position
of ordering a drink at a restaurant.

Change it next session. And, get the state out of the
"state liquor store" business and privatize that with whatever rules and
taxes you want, but we don't need state employees running wholesale and
retail operations that hundreds of private businesses can do faster, better and
cheaper, saving taxpayers millions of dollars in operational costs and
retirement benefits.

The previous law wasn't clear enough that someone could be sipping on their
wine while they were reading the menu and the liquor cops were causing
restaurants grief all of a sudden with no change in the law.

So the
restaurants wanted a clarification in the law (that passed this year) that it
was fine to be sipping wine at olive garden while you are reading the menu.

Why don't they leave it at that and tell the liquor cops they are
in violation of the law. Dabc even having the discussion means they totally
missed it.